Pet peeves

Yet another repost from the amazon boadrs (I'm lazy...sue me....)

Here's the link....

When it comes to fantasy series, the peeves are as follows:

1: Don't make too much of a good thing - many series that start out good and promising all to often lose their vitality by extending on further than they need to be. Thus, what was supposed to have been a trilogy becomes a pentalogy, then reach seven books, then ten, until finally the weary fan throws up his hand and says enough. Because at some point each new book ceases to have any relevance on the greater story, becomes more and more obsessed with meaningless subplots and minor characters, and comes across as just a big collection of filler material meant to stretch out a profitable series for the money. I can think of several fantasy series that fit this bill, epics which quite reasonably could have been wrapped up after volume four or five, but instead just kept on going, and going and going....

2: Don't let the setting overwhelm the story. There a lot of fantasy books out there where the author has spent a lot of time and energy creating a fantastically detailed world for the characters to reside in, and then when he (or she) actually sits down to write the story, decides to pause every few pages to describe, at length, some aspect of the political, social or magical system that causes the eyes to glaze after the third paragraph. ) I fully admit to being guilt of this back when I started writing...)

Setting matters in fantasy, perhaps more than any other genre. A fully developed world can enhance the story and make it better - The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire are good examples of this - but they need to exist in balance. One shouldn't overwhelm the other.

3: Cardboard characters. Fantasy is genre that loves it's stereotypes, and all to often that results in characters that lack any real sense of depth. They're either pure, noble heroes or dark-hearted villains without a hint of redemption. Thankfully this seems to be less the case nowadays, but it still occurs...to my mind the best fantasy series are the one in which the characters are more shades of gray in their approach to things, where villains aren't always villains and heroes can walk on the dark side. Interesting characters make for interesting stories, and isn't that what's all about in the end - telling a story?

Anyway, there's my two cents on the matter...